Alpha's Secret Bride

Ashley quietly rose from his chair and gently pushed the sealed envelope across the table toward her. "This belongs to you."

She looked down at it. The crimson royal seal was still unbroken, and her fingers tightened slightly against her lap.

Ashley paused beside her chair. "I’ll give you some time."

Emma didn’t look up. She simply kept her eyes on the envelope as he turned and walked toward the door.

Just before stepping out, Ashley stopped and glanced back at her. "When Brandon wrote that letter..." His voice softened, and he paused for a moment. "He wasn’t sure he would ever see you again."

Ashley hesitated, then continued, "The secret investigation was supposed to last only a few months, but Samuel and his cohorts were far more determined to take control of the kingdom than Brandon had expected. What should have taken a few months stretched into two long winters, and by the time the investigation finally ended, far more had happened than any of us anticipated."

He waited for a moment, but she remained silent. He finally stepped out and pulled the door closed behind him.

Emma was alone.

The chamber seemed strangely quiet without her father’s voice. She sat there for several long moments, staring at the envelope resting on the table. Her hands remained folded in her lap, and every time she looked at the royal seal, her fingers trembled.

She wasn’t ready to read it. Maybe she never would be.

But after everything Ashley had told her, she couldn’t leave it unopened.

She slowly reached for the envelope. Her fingers shook as she broke the crimson seal and carefully opened it.

Inside were several neatly folded pages. She lifted the first one and unfolded it with trembling hands.

At the top of the page, in Brandon’s familiar handwriting, were only a few words:

For My Moonheart.

Emma’s breath caught.

She ran her thumb lightly over the first line, and her vision blurred. A tear slipped down her cheek before she could wipe it away.

Then she carefully unfolded the rest of the page.

"My dearest Emma,

If you’re reading this, then fate has finally been kinder to us than I ever dared hope. I don’t know when this letter will reach you. Perhaps in a few months, perhaps winters from now, or perhaps never. If that is the case, then these words will remain nothing more than a conversation I had with the woman I love."

Emma’s lips quivered as she held the letter a little tighter, her eyes moving slowly over every word. For a moment, she simply stared at the page before drawing a shaky breath and continuing.

"I couldn’t tell you where I was going because the moment you knew, you would have been placed in danger too. There were things happening within the kingdom that I could not ignore, and there were people I could not fight openly without putting you and our family in danger.

I know you may ask why I didn’t trust you enough to tell you. The truth is, I trusted you more than anyone. That was exactly why I kept you away from it.

You were meant to stand beside me when we ruled this kingdom. I wanted us to build a peaceful life here, raise our pups together, and grow old knowing that we had protected what belonged to them. I couldn’t allow the threats surrounding the throne to reach you before I had a chance to stop them.

So I left.

Not because I wanted another life.

Not because I wanted to rule without you.

I left because I was trying to make sure there would still be a kingdom for us to rule together when this was over.

Every decision I’ve made has brought me farther away from you, and I know what that must have looked like from where you stood. But even when I was far from home, you were never outside my thoughts.

I don’t know whether I will succeed. I don’t know whether I will return to you the way I hope to.

But if I do return, I don’t want you to hear from anyone else why I left.

I left because I loved you enough to risk being hated by you.

And if that is the price I have to pay to see you and our pups safe, then I will pay it."

She squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears had already begun to spill down her cheeks. A sob escaped before she could stop it, and she pressed her lips together as though she could force the sound back. She had believed exactly that. Every single word.

She wiped quickly at her cheeks with the back of her hand, then looked down at the letter again. Her fingers trembled against the edges of the pages as she forced herself to keep reading.

"If hatred is what keeps you alive, then hate me. If believing I stopped loving you helps you move forward, then believe it. I can bear your anger. I cannot bear the thought of losing you."

Emma’s hand rose to cover her mouth as another sob shook her. She bent her head, and the tears slipped between her fingers, falling onto the page. She quickly moved the letter away from the drops, carefully holding it with both hands before looking down at the next line.

"Every moonrise, I wake wondering whether Bryan asked about me. Whether you have put him to bed. Whether you told him about me. Whether the pup has learned another new word. Whether you smiled today. Those are questions I may never have answers to. That is the price I chose. And I would choose it again. Not because my heart is strong, but because my love for you is stronger than my fear of losing the woman I love."

Emma’s vision blurred until the words became nothing more than dark shapes on the page. She blinked several times, but more tears gathered in her eyes. Her fingers slowly loosened around the letter, and she lowered the pages onto her lap, staring down at them as her shoulders trembled.

Then the memories came rushing back all at once.

She remembered Brandon accepting her slap without a word, his face turning with the force of it before he slowly looked back at her. He had never complained about the way she treated him, never tried to force her to listen or demanded that she believe him. Even when she asked him to sign the severance papers, he had refused to sign them. Instead, he had stayed close enough to repair Bryan’s swing when it broke, read stories to Charlotte when she wanted him, and kept every promise he had made to their pups.

And every day, he had still left without once asking her to come home with him. He had never stood in front of her and defended himself. Never tried to make her feel guilty for the way she had treated him. He had simply taken everything she gave him and walked away, carrying the truth alone.

She buried her face in the letter and wept. The sobs tore out of her as she gripped the pages against her chest, her shoulders shaking so hard that she had to stop and draw breath before she could cry again. Months of grief, anger, guilt, and love came spilling out of her until she could barely catch her breath.

"I was wrong..." she whispered through broken sobs, pressing the letter tighter against herself. "I was so wrong..."

She took a steadying breath and called for her maid.

"Iris."

"Yes, my Queen Luna?"

"Have my bath prepared."

"Of course, my Queen Luna."

Iris hurried to the bathing chamber to prepare everything. A few minutes later, she stepped inside, bathed, and changed into a fresh dress. When she returned to her chamber, she sat quietly and waited for Brandon to come back.

She had planned to speak to him the moment he arrived. She had even gone over the words in her head several times, trying to figure out how to begin after everything she had just learned.

But as the minutes passed, her courage faded. She looked toward the door, then down at her hands, and finally decided to wait.

Perhaps she wasn’t ready yet.

Outside the window, a burst of Bryan’s laughter drifted in from the garden. Emma slowly lifted her head and wiped at her wet cheeks, but before she could steady herself, Charlotte’s tiny voice rang out happily from outside.

"Father!"

Emma went still.

She turned toward the window just as Brandon arrived.

Just as he always did.

He had no idea she now knew the truth. He would probably be smiling at the pups, helping Bryan with his lessons, and carrying Charlotte on his shoulders as though nothing had changed. He had no idea that inside Moon Estate, the walls Emma had built around her heart were finally beginning to crumble.

She looked down at the letter in her hands and clutched it tightly against her chest. Her tears continued to fall, slipping quietly down her cheeks as she listened to the sound of her pups outside.

But this time, they were no longer tears of abandonment.

They were tears for the man who had loved her enough to let her hate him.